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Disruption has probably been overused in many areas now. From media, to advertising; from innovation, to consulting.

Disruption is also one of the buzzwords that have been used in education lately, yet few really seem to know what it means. I found this article written by Dr. Michelle Weise, who was a senior research fellow with the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation at the time of writing. She is now executive director of the Innovation Lab at Southern New Hampshire University.

In higher education especially, there’s a tendency to take an exciting technological advancement, call it a disruptive innovation, cram it into the classroom experience, and then hope that efficiencies will magically appear. But a disruptive innovation doesn’t necessarily entail a technological breakthrough. In fact, in our most recent work in higher education called Hire Education, Clayton Christensen and I underscore that there is true disruptive potential in online competency-based education (CBE) aligned to workforce needs even though the parts of this whole are not at all new.

McKinsey Global Institute publishes study on innovations that will transform life, business, and the global economy

We are in an ever changing parade of new innovations on numerous fronts. Just about every development in technology is charged as a leap forward, and we are constantly looking for the “next big thing”. However, not every upcoming innovation will truly be able to influence the business or social landscape, but some of them might be disruptive for existing conditions and change the way we live and work. As such it is important as a business leader to comprehend which technologies will matter to them and how to prepare for changes.

The fundaments of the consultancy’s business plans have basically not altered in more than 100 years: Sending outcasts, smart and agile, into associations for a limited time and asking them to propose solutions for the most troublesome issues their customers had to solve. Some experienced specialists have been questioned by a team of researchers and they sneered at the assumption of a coming disruption in their industry, noting that customers will always be confronted by new challenges,thus giving consultants a reason to exist. Their response is reasonable, in light of the fact that two variables—opacity and agility—have long made consultants resistant to disruption.

In “Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption” (Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2013), Clayton Christensen, Dina Wang & Derek van Bever point out the coming disruptive changes in the world of management consulting:

https://hellriegel.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/200393258-001.jpg16362136adminhttp://hellriegel.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/digi-Marketing_x200x101-300x151.jpgadmin2013-09-16 18:23:252015-06-22 15:24:13Updated: Disrupting the Disruptors - Changes in the World of Consulting Firms